Knud Rasmussen | |
|---|---|
Kunuunnguaq | |
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| Born | Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (1879-06-07)7 June 1879 |
| Died | 21 December 1933(1933-12-21) (aged 54) Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Known for | Polar exploration andeskimology |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Anthropology |
| Signature | |
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Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen[1] (/ˈræsmʊsən/; 7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933)[2] was a Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father ofEskimology"[3] (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studies) and was the first European to cross theNorthwest Passage viadog sled.[4] He remains well known in Greenland, Denmark and among CanadianInuit.[5]
Rasmussen was born in Jacobshavn (now calledIlulissat), Greenland, the son of a Danish missionary, the vicar Christian Rasmussen, and anInuk–Danish mother, Lovise Rasmussen (née Fleischer). He had two siblings.
Rasmussen spent his early years in Greenland among theKalaallit where he learnt to speakKalaallisut, hunt, drive dog sleds and live in harshArctic conditions. "My playmates were native Greenlanders; from the earliest boyhood I played and worked with the hunters, so even the hardships of the most strenuous sledge-trips became pleasant routine for me."[6]
He was later educated inLynge,North Zealand, Denmark. Between 1898 and 1900 he pursued an unsuccessful career as an actor and opera singer.[5]
He went on his first expedition in 1902–1904, known as The Danish Literary Expedition, withJørgen Brønlund,Harald Moltke andLudvig Mylius-Erichsen, to examineInuit culture. After returning home, he went on a lecture circuit and wroteThe People of the Polar North (1908), a combination travel journal and scholarly account of Inuit folklore. In 1908, he married Dagmar Andersen.[7]
In 1910, Rasmussen and friendPeter Freuchen established Thule Trading Station inNorth Star Bay nearMount Dundas in Greenland as a trading base.[5][8] The name "Thule" was chosen because it was the most northerly trading post in the world, literally the "Ultima Thule".[6] The station became the home base for a series of seven expeditions, known as theThule Expeditions, between 1912 and 1933.[9]
The First Thule Expedition (1912, Rasmussen and Freuchen) aimed to testRobert Peary's claim that a channel dividedPeary Land from Greenland. They proved this was not the case in a remarkable 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) journey across the inland ice that almost killed them.[5]Clements Markham, president of theRoyal Geographical Society, called the journey the "finest ever performed by dogs."[10] Freuchen wrote personal accounts of this journey (and others) inVagrant Viking (1953) andI Sailed with Rasmussen (1958).[11] In 1915, he translated Mathias Storch's novelSingnagtugaq into Danish (The Dream in English; translated asEn grønlænders drøm), the first novel written in Greenlandic.[12]
The Second Thule Expedition (1916–1918) was larger with a team of seven men, which set out to map a little-known area of Greenland's north coast. This journey was documented in Rasmussen's accountGreenland by the Polar Sea (1921). The trip was beset with two fatalities, the only in Rasmussen's career,[5] namelyThorild Wulff and Hendrik Olsen. The Third Thule Expedition (1919) was depot-laying forRoald Amundsen's polar drift in the shipMaud.[5] The Fourth Thule Expedition (1919–1920) was in east Greenland where Rasmussen spent several months collecting ethnographic data nearAngmagssalik.[5]
Rasmussen's "greatest achievement"[5] was the massive Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–1924) which was designed to "attack the great primary problem of the origin of the Eskimo race."[6] A ten-volume account (The Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–1924 (1946)) of ethnographic, archaeological and biological data was collected, and many artifacts are still on display in museums in Denmark. The team of seven first went to eastern Arctic Canada where they began collecting specimens, taking interviews (including the shamanAua, who told him ofUvavnuk), and excavating sites.[citation needed]
Rasmussen left the team and traveled for 16 months with two Inuit hunters bydog sled across North America toNome, Alaska, and for less than 48 hours (because of visa problems) to Russia, where he interviewed a few of the local Inuit, the Yupiks. He found they did indeed speak the same language as other Inuit. (Bown, pp 257-259). He was the first European to cross theNorthwest Passage by dog sled.[4] His journey is recounted inAcross Arctic America (1927), considered today a classic of polar expedition literature.[5] This trip has also been called the "Great Sled Journey" and was dramatized in the Canadian filmThe Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006).[13]
For the next seven years, Rasmussen traveled between Greenland and Denmark giving lectures and writing. In 1931, he went on the Sixth Thule Expedition, designed to consolidate Denmark's claim on a portion of eastern Greenland thatwas contested by Norway.[5]
The Seventh Thule Expedition (1933) was meant to continue the work of the sixth, but Rasmussen contracted pneumonia after an episode of food poisoning attributed to eatingkiviaq,[14][15] dying a few weeks later inCopenhagen at the age of 54. During this expedition Rasmussen worked on the filmThe Wedding of Palo, which Rasmussen wrote the screenplay for. The film was directed by Friedrich Dalsheim and completed in 1934 under the Danish titlePalos brudefærd.[16][17]
In addition to several capes and glaciers,Knud Rasmussen Range in Greenland is named after him, as is theKnud Rasmussen-class patrol vessel and its lead ship, theHDMS Knud Rasmussen.[18]
He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from theAmerican Geographical Society in 1912, and itsDaly Medal in 1924.[19] TheRoyal Geographical Society awarded him theirFounder's Medal in 1923[20] and theRoyal Danish Geographical Society theirHans Egede Medal in 1924.[21] He was madehonorary doctor at theUniversity of Copenhagen in 1924, and theUniversity of St Andrews in 1927.[22]
The People of the Polar North. (1908)Greenland by the Polar Sea. (1921)Eskimo Folk Tales. (1921)Across Arctic America. (1927)Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos. (1929) Also from theInternet ArchiveObservations on the Intellectual Culture of the Caribou Eskimos. (1930)
